Which would you do and why? I have a '66 Olds that I hope to either paint or have painted this coming winter. I have a very good paint-and-body man in the family, but said bodyman can't do it for free (nor would I expect him to) and has plenty of business, meaning there will be waits and scheduling problems, etc. Not a big deal, but still makes me wonder: Considering the cash I'd have to cough up (we're roughly guessing over $3K) why not buy some of the tools I don't have (like a stud welder and slide hammer to fit, plus body hammers, bondo spreaders, spray gun, etc.) and do the work myself? I do have some important tools already- big compressor, decent DA, air file, pistolgrip sander, MIG and TIG, etc. I'm no idiot, and good with my hands, but I've never done a whole cars' worth of bodywork before (plenty of small fixes though) and I want it black. Which means it needs to be dead-nuts straight. So basically, it's pay a pro to do it, or spend a little less on buying my own tools and materials and do the work myself. The pro is better at it, but I'd be able to dedicate more time, perhaps do things a with a bit more care. But also with a bit less skill, so there's a tradeoff. Also, if I do it myself, I can trickle money into it. If I pay the pro, it's lump sums- some up front, some for materials, the rest on completion. Then again, with the pro, I can hand over the keys and a check, and come back in six weeks to three months and it's done, polished, waxed and ready. Which would you rather do? Or when you had something painted, which way did you go? Doc.
Why not do both? Buy some tools, do all the dent removal, prep, etc. Call your bodyman to check your progress. Be sure to throw some beer down his neck as a consulting fee. Blow the primer on it, block it, etc. And when both you and your body guy think its straight, pay him to shoot the color. Then you can brag that you did the body work, but the paint went down nice and smooth thanks to the pro, in a booth (hopefully) so it is dust free and all that.
Ditto Flingdingo. A step further....aside from space and time considerations, you know when you want a certian quality. For example, if I were putting together a showstopper piece right now it would go to Richard Glymph, best painter I know hands down. If I needed something in between that and road worthy I'd look around and shop price against quality and sweat equity things. Less than that, like painting my daily 'HotRod Black', I might try that at home. Another consideration when thinking about getting something painted, deduct the cost of the tools you dont have and the materials against the quote for the get real price.
I say do it yourself. If your painting with a single stage, not happy with the result, scuff and buff it to a show stopper! Just don't cheap out on paint, I bought some super cheap **** (Omni) when we painted my '69 Olds 98 Conv., t took 2 gallons to get that **** to cover. I'm kinda lucky my brother is a paint and body man. He will paint for me, but I have to do all the dirty work!
I think you need to do some figuring before you go and spend any $$. First the body work, I say do it yourself, but do you have the time? A lot of guys start down that road and end up 10 years later with a half finished car. If you devote the time it is rewarding to do yourself and a good learning experience (I know I am into it right now ) The filler and primer you should do yourself, if the body is the way you like it. Just don't skimp on materials, again though it takes time. I have done a few motorcycles and a fuel tank can take a week just to prep for paint (depends on how many dings and dents it has.) For the paint, do you have a place to paint, (temp booth, or real paint booth) and again time. If you already have the, TIME, then go for it. I did it with bikes and I'm going to do it with my car. Course my car won't be a show car, just a daily driver.
Firstly, I'm not a pianter, but I can paint. I don't deserve nor do I want a paint job any better than I can do myself. That puts me in a different situation than you but the thing I hate the most and it's happened to me a lot is... I want something done right, so I'll pay to have it done, then it's done worse than I could have done it and it cost me bucks. I find it hard to explain this to my wife when she says 'Just pay someone to do it'. If you want it done right, do it yourself. At least then it's the best you can do and you have the satisfaction ...and you're no out of pocket. Pete
well, just my humble opinion.... if you buy all the tools, supplies and materials....then you have all the means to do any paint and bodywork for the rest of your life....not to mention the skills that you will aquire while undertaking this task. the way i see it, you can either spend your money on all the things you would need to paint your car, or you can spend your money on someone elses labor and only end up with a nice paint job. body work is not difficult work...it is tedious, timeconsuming and sometimes frustrating, but it can be done... just take your time, buy good materials, and i'm sure you can turn out a helluva paintjob right at home...and you'll have all your tools to start on your next project too!
I'm with airkolled... altho its hard to agree with a Vee Dubya guy i despise farming out anything. if i dont know how to do it, i'll learn how or find a friend who does to give me a hand... that said, once you buy the stuff you need for sprayin a car, you own it, and the next one all you need is supplies (thinner, paint, hardner, Etc...) over time you will save a ****load of money and have the satisfaction of having done it yourself.
I like being able to paint my own cars. You'll spend all that money on a paintjob, and if you decided you want a different color 5 or 6 years down the road, you have to spend that money again. If you invest in the equipment, when you get bored with the color, you can paint is again for the cost of the paint. I'm o a point where wen I look at cars for sale, I barley notice what color it is because I ***ums I'm going to want to paint is sometime soon anyway.
Do it yourself. I don't know where you are, but if it gets cold in the winter you'll have to have heat in the garage for bodywork to turn out right. You can do a panel 10-12 times yourself till it turns out the way you want it, a pro will charge you for every time.
I was in your position myself about 20 years ago. I opted to buy the tools & learn. Now I paint other peoples cars to support MY car habit. I went from paying out the yingyang for a so so paintjob, to having a Skill that pays ME! Even if you never paint another car, you will learn a hell of a lot about what it takes to get a good paint job. P.S. If you are going with Black, plan on painting that car 3 times to get it perfict. Charlie
If you want a '66 Olds done black, do it yourself. If you pay someone to do it, and do it right, you might as well start with a '36 Packard (or something of that caliber) because it's the only thing that might still be worth more than the price of the paint job when you're done. A suggestion; A DA doesn't belong anywhere in a paint shop, a paint stripping shop maybe, but it'll only make really awful waves in a surface that needs to be hand block sanded from the start to be mirror straight and mirror reflective black. And a '66 Olds can look like one big beautiful flat mirror or a ripply old cheap fibergl*** canoe, depending on how it's prepped for paint. '66 Oldsmobiles were good looking cars, make it pretty!
Let me play Devil's Advocate. My 2 cents. Pay and have it done if you want it done right. Just speaking the truth. Let me preface these next comments by saying that if you REALLY want to do bodywork, you have more than a year to learn and you can justify the expendature needed for all of the tools, by all means do it yourself. And let me also say that each person learns at a different pace and some guys can just pick it up easily, others need a coach. If you don't have a coach, well - draw your own conclusion but I doubt that we'll be drooling over your results. Another thing, I have no idea what you are starting with either - could be a really nice car, or there could be a lot of whammys hiding out in there. In all honesty it's going to take almost 2Gs just to buy all of the stuff needed to get started if not more (depending on what you have right now). And that's just the tools and materials for stripping it down and sanding on it. A couple years ago I just wanted to put my Buick in primer and it cost me over $600 just for the etching primer, the epoxy primer, the filler, and all of the hardeners, catalyst ond other stuff. If you think paint is cheap think again. And you WILL have to know how to weld patch panels, unless you don't care about how long the paint job or the car will last - which won't be long if you take the shortcuts and just smear over the bad stuff. And those little horizonal 4 horse 20 gal garage air compressors aren't going to cut the mustard - and if you try to use it for extended periods of time on a consistant basis you'll burn it up in no time. They can't keep up with the tools. We went through two before we finally realized that they just won't last. I hate to think of all of the other problems that will pop up and cost you money too, like air lines, filters, water traps etc.. My water trap/line fliter cost me over a hundred bucks alone. Let's not even think about where you are going to paint this thing. Hope you don't need a garage anymore because even a little car can fill up a garage when you tear it all apart. Then there is the mess that you create when you sand on the car. And the following process of painting reqires a sanitary condition that is going to take you forever to achieve after micro dust particals are hiding in every nook and cranny of the garage..... You could take a shot at it, and maybe get lucky and have most of it turn out alright....key words most and alright. I have never seen an amateur bodyman nail it on the first try. So unless you plan on painting this car two or three times this winter, you might just want to get it done right the first time - it'll be cheaper. Plus your car will be worth more when it's finished, which you could sell to buy another project of equal value AND some tools....or whatever. I just couldn't let everyone go on playing this off like it's no big deal to paint a car. It's the biggest deal of all!!! It is what makes the car. You could have the best engine, the finest interior, and the straightest body on the planet and you could still **** up the paint job - and have to start all over.....If the paint looks ****tty the car looks ****ty. It's like a really hot chick with warts, zits and blotchy skin. You can tell she'd be hot and you kinda get turned on, but you can't stop looking at all of the gross ****.....
I had the same dilema.... So, I signed up for an auto body cl*** at the local JC. I invested in some tools, and started learning. The first thing i learned is that i have "DEAD" hands. THe experienced bodymen I know could feel A LOT of stuff that I couldn't have found with a magnifying gl***! I also learned that body work is VERY time consuming, especially when you are learning and materials are expensive so learning can be expensive too. I did find it fulfilling but I just realized that: 1) I was not going to get the results that I wanted doing it myself. 2) It would have taken me FOREVER to do the whole car myself. These are my personal findings (may be different for others). I do not regret doing the work myself that I did. I enjoyed a lot of it. I just alwasy felt rushed becasue I really didn't have enough time. If I wasn't looking for a REALLLY NICE end result, i may have done it all myself and just finished the car in primer/sealer, but to do it right I had to enlist pros like Dante (lowsprings) and my friend Bones who is just amazing. He just has an eye and feel for things that I will never get. It is like magic to me. FONZI
You said you have a good bodyman/painter in the family,so I would buy the tools required, as you already have most of them. Do most of the work yourself up to the primer and when you think is ready,pay him to block sand the final stage and let him paint it. IT takes a lot of time and money to learn how to block sand and paint correctly.you would hate to paint it only to find you still have waves and scratches that a lot of times are only visible after the paint or to a trained hand/eye before paint. this way you save money,time,get experience and end up with a good paint job.eventually working up to doing it yourself. also theres a thred in the bodywork/prep subject by overspray, read it. I'm supposed to be profesional ''production'' bodyman/painter,and even managed to get ase certified only to find out there were some things I was doing wrong.
I am in the same situation, I have completed most of the body work and now it's getting close to painting. I plan on having someone paint my car, never painted a car before, then learn the tricks of the trade so that I can paint my next car. Right now I don't have the tools or the room to do it myself. Good luck!
There are some real good points being made here. I'll add, though: from my experience in talking with pro body/paint dudes is if you are doing any of your own work, they want to know what you did and how you did it. If you show up with a car in primer surfacer and asking them to do the finish paint, many won't guarantee their work not being able to see what's underneath. (Kinda like asking a contractor to build a house on an existing foundation that he can't see.) Since your "pro" is in the family, I'd strongly agree with the earlier suggestion of having him stop by and check your work at various stages, as well as coaching you to the next level... whether you end up actually painting the car or he does. Also, take any advice he's willing to give as far as what brands of paint, sandpaper, spray guns, etc. to buy... especially if you still intend for him to do the final finish. Another thing that I have seen some higher-end painters do is to paint the car once (after you think it's straight enough), fully planning to scuff it, re-work, and re-paint for a final finish. You might allow enough budget to plan to paint the car a couple or even 3 times. If your satisfied with the first round, then use the exrta cash to do something else for your car (or your wife... for letting you spend all the time/money on the car lately!) Fonzi-- I'm right there with you on the dead hands thing. I hate body work because I'm no good at it. I'm no good at body work because I hate it!
This is a GREAT way to get a car painted inexpensively. Plus you get hands-on learning experience on your own vehicle. Check into your local technical highschools for night cl***es - there are two in my area that offer courses for less than $400. About nine years ago I took the cl*** in order to paint my wife's '64 Valiant, I had full access to all the tools in the shop (air tools, stud pullers, MIG welders, etc.) plus all sandpaper & primer were included in the cl*** fee. I had the instructor shoot the color in the downdraft spraybooth, it came out nicer than I thought it would. I had to pay for my own paint, but my total investment was less than $500 and 11 weeks of Tuesday nights. Look into it, I've had a few friends take the cl*** and they all were very happy with it. Hopefully there's something similar available in your area.
I am with Broman, I am going to let someone do it who paints for a living, who knows the in's and out's. Sure, I can take courses, get help from friends, practice practice and practice and get good at it. For me, time is money. If I spend decades trying to perfect a glossy black paint job, I would have missed out enjoying the car! I dont want to lose motivation of the project because I spent months or years to finally get her the way I would like it. I would do everything in my car EXCEPT paint, Chrome, and upholstery. I do agree with many that doing your body work would bring satisfaction...it would to me. But painting, I'll leave that to the pro's.
I've been doing paint and bodywork on the side for about three years now and I'll be honest, it's alot of work to get something show quality. Just the cost of a decent compressor (I have a Quincy Qt-5, air dryer, etc) was more than some people pay someone else to do a complete paint job BUT I don't regret doing it. There's just nothing as fine as doing your own work. The main thing, like everyone says, is the prep work. You can have the best painter in the world but if the prep isn't right, it will look like ****. Expect to have to prime and block that car at least six times for it to be right. '66 Olds' have alot of flat panels and painting it black will show every ripple possible. Nothing looks better than black that's done right, contrarily, nothing looks worse when it's done wrong too. Just my opinion though...
Do it yourself! The first car I painted was a 57 ford pickup. I later traded it on a new ford truck and the dealer put it on the show room, kept raving about the paint job. Sometimes you get lucky!
Oh, don't get me wrong. Everything I do myself costs twice as much and looks half as good as if I paid someone else. But I still refuse to trust some other chucklehead to do work for me. Ever see the Cosby Show when Heathcliff did some plumbing work and screwed it all up? Ended up paying some young girl to do a professional job? That's me. I live by the credo "What Would Cosby Do?"
Thanks for the responses guys! Aero- that is a kick-*** pic. Yours? Not surprisingly, I haven't made up my mind yet. Some clarification though: We know that doing a nice black job will cost me in the neighborhood of $3K to $4K. That's hand over the car, wait X weeks, come back and drive it away. That's not bad, really. I can't easily afford it, but I can find a way. I know paint and materials aren't cheap. As I said, that family member does bodywork and paint, and he's mentioned often how expensive paints and solvents are. $400 a pint for that "chromacolor", as I recall. Yeah, I know it's not cheap, but $3K can buy a LOT of materials and tools. Doc.
Since I have no garage or paint experience, I had my 63 nova painted about two+ years ago. I paid about $3,000 (which is cheap but not MAACO cheap). During it's first summer (which in San Francisco means scalding temps in the upper 80's) it started bubbling all over and spliting at edges. The Nova is back at the painter getting redone for free right now. I'm currently driving my '52 Buick which is going to need body work and repainting eventually. This time I'm going to take some cl***es and do as much of the work as I can even if I have to do it 10 times to be happy with it. The Buick is my learning project and I don't want to pay to have anyone do anything on it unless it's an emergency. I would say do as much of the work as you're comfortable doing and then push a little further.
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